The Rediscovery of England

Abstract

For many centuries, in fact from the beginning of human life in England, men lived in this country unconscious of their environment except in an intensely localised fashion. And except, of course, the very small minority of overseas merchants who were accustomed to travelling beyond the horizon. Nearly all men lived on a farm, in a village, or a town, and they had no mental grasp of anything larger than their visual horizon. England was not conceived of as a country deserving of — or awaiting — discovery, exploration, and mapping. And then almost suddenly the notion was born that all around us was this unknown country; and maps, descriptions, and histories, poured forth for the next three hundred years.